Pestilence: Rise Of The Pure Undead

Eventually, Griar had no choice but to tuck himself in between the protruding roots of trees, and close his eyes to catch some sleep, thankfully not waking up with a farm tool stabbed through the chest or surrounded by murderous villagers, instead, he was woken up by distant noises, which sounded like small blasts, rising up from his hiding spot, he realised that a group of people, all dressed in attires that looked very reminiscent of the ones that had been upon the dismembered body of the town.

There were only three of those people, but despite that, they seemed to be doing quite well against the numerically superior villagers, whatever weapons it was that they were wielding, they seemed to be like the one the villager with the straw hat had used, only that they could launch their small, iron bolts far more often, in fact, it looked like they were firing dozens of them every seconds, turning their enemies into lumps of flesh and causing black blood mist to erupt.

Despite the fact that those three were basically grinding many of the villagers to the point that some of their targets lost limbs or had entire portions of their bodies turned into minced meat, the inhabitants of the village did not seem to care, they just kept moving forward.

The trio used a language completely different from what Flor and the villagers spoke, so Griar had no idea what they were speaking off as they shouted out stuff from behind their masks, but they stepped away and stopped using their advanced crossbows, removing a part of it on the bottom and replacing it with an identical one, just as the burlap woman with the mace stepped out from in between two houses, moving straight toward them.

All three focused fire on the woman, and Griar was certain that she would be torn to shreds in an instant, after all, only one of those three people was capable of decimating the other villagers, so all three together would surely turn the mace-wielding woman into mist and a few bloody chunks, but that did not happen.

The sad-faced woman endured the volley of projectiles absurdly well, not even falling back and merely being made to step back as the small bolts that would normally pierce right through flesh and bones failed to penetrate through their target's entire body, remaining stuck.

Black blood mist did rise out of her however, but not by much.

One of the three yelled something, and stopped attacking, instead retrieving some sort of small ball, he pulled something out of it, and threw it at the burlap wearing woman's feet, and a few moments later, the small ball exploded.

Griar was rather confused by it all, he sensed basically no magic from these people or their equipment, the best they had was a minor all-around physical augmentation, which was so simplistic and basic, that this was the sort of thing a young, child apprentice would be taught, but those three were adults and looked like full-on warriors.

And the items they used were deprived of any mana, or anything special Griar could recognise, as far as he could tell, they were akin to intricately forged swords and other items, they truly had nothing special about them, just many pieces assembled together.

Although undoubtedly advanced, the fact that it lacked everything beyond that showed, as the villagers they were facing had been deeply affected by something supernatural, and it seemed like those wearing burlap sacks had been especially affected, as the woman, even after enduring a condensed volley that caused countless small bolts to get embedded into her chest and head, and then a subsequent explosion that sent her flying away, she stood up again, the bag atop her head partially shredded.

Revealing a face that had been absolutely torn apart by the earlier assault, the woman began to tremble, and suddenly, alongside the mask, her neck and skull split in half vertically, leaving place to a dozen dark tendrils to emerge, each of them barring a sort of nightmarish maw, each of them clacking their teeth together and producing ungodly sounds.

One of them lunged forward and bit down on one of the three warriors, picking the man up and repeatedly slamming it down on the ground, with enough force to break bones, the other two tried to free their fellow by firing at the tendrils, but bullets just went right through and only caused faint ripples as though they were just firing at water.

The act of brutality only stopped when the body detached from the head and was sent rolling away, swiftly followed by the tendrils crushing the skull in between its teeth, causing an eye to come flying out before gulping the entire head down.

Following this, the other two naturally did not wish to stick around and attempted to flee, but one was intercepted nearly immediately by the other bag wearer, who stabbed the intruder right through his guts with the cutter mattock, severing his spine in a single go.

As for the third one, he managed to run into the woods, but was unfortunate and in his hurry, stepped right over a bear trap before being subsequently caught by several villagers who dismembered him alive.

This entire time, Griar could only watch, knowing perfectly well that if he tried to intervene, he would probably just get himself killed and not be of any help to any of these people, he had not imagine that the burlap sacks signified such dire power, the axe-man could have probably tore Griar apart if given even the slightest of occasions, and it was no wonder that he seemed to not be so bothered by being stabbed in the throat, that woman just now was able to endure far worse before the tendrils even showed up.

If his idea that the tendrils only manifested when lethal damage was suffered, then it meant that the combined efforts of those three men had been needed to achieve that, and probably would have been required again to put her down completely.

He definitely did not want to mess with any of those sad-faced impersonators…

The commotion seemed to have attracted attention from the castle however, as the bridge came down, leaving place to a congress of people that were dressed in ways Griar felt more familiar with, robes of various colours that seemed clerical in nature, and even knights.

This group was headed by a tall figure garbed in a wide hood and cloak, Griar just assumed that they were here to check out what had happened, he did not intend on observing them, instead focused on the open gates to the castle.

That was his chance to get inside.